


The Joey Project

by noirhound



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Catholic Guilt, Catholic Joey, Joey Needs a Hug, Joey POV, M/M, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, and a sandwich, eventual fake dating, fake dating au, preferably both at the same time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 14:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15951461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noirhound/pseuds/noirhound
Summary: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy dates girl. Boy marries girl. Fin.In 90s New York, when the word 'gay' is an insult and your sexuality can get you killed, the story isn't as easy as that for Joey Tribbiani. All he wants to do most days is crawl out of his skin and find a place to hide. It doesn't help that his parents condemn homosexuality to hell. It doesn't help that he still doesn't know who he is. It doesn't help that he might be completely gone for his best friend. It certainly doesn't help that he now has to pretend-date said best friend.It's messy, and complicated, and has way, way more heartbreak than 'boy meets girl'. And this, this is his story.





	1. The One With The Clock and Groceries

**Author's Note:**

> guys guys guys listen here ok i kNoW i should be writing trouble for two and get crackin on happy steve bingo but,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,c h a n o e y
> 
> i love poor bby chandler and everything but also i stan joseph tribbiani like nobody's business and he needs more POV fic ok (open letter to the friends fandom: give me more of that good shit pls)
> 
> this fic was a super personal trip for me because a lot of what joey feels is stuff that i've gone through, so it's a big important project for me (plus i live vicariously through fic so sue me)
> 
> enjoy, guys<3

Joey leans his head as far back as it can go into the pillows. He sighs as he clenches and unclenches the sheets between sweating fingers. It’s late in the night _._ Or early in the morning. Who knows what time it is? Joey cranes his neck to the right to glance at the clock, then huffs. It’s an analog clock, and the numbers are Greek numerals, or something like that. Another one of Monica’s thoughtful and heartfelt birthday presents – a clock that he can’t even fucking read.

“Oh, wow, thank you so much, Mon. Whatever will I do without you,” he had intoned monotonously when he’d opened the present (shaped suspiciously like a pizza delivery box) and found…a wall clock (he maintains that the ultimate buzzkill is expecting pizza and getting a clock). Monica’s joy was boundless. “It’s vintage! And it matches your wallpaper! Don’t you think it’s _perfect?_ ” Joey had nodded enthusiastically, then mimed flinging the clock out of the window like a frisbee when her back was turned to him. Chandler saw him do it. Chandler snorted beer up his nose and set himself off into a coughing fit. He pretended he’d accidentally inhaled a bug when Monica asked him if he was okay.

Ugh… _Chandler._

Joey’s eyes slide over to the wall. The Wall. The Wall that he shares with Chandler Bing, roommate. Well…not exactly ‘roommate’. They don’t share a room. They share an apartment. So, a more accurate term would be…apartmentmate. Housemate. Helps-pay-the-rent-mate. Buys-groceries-mate. Runs-lines-with-me-mate.

Chandler, probably soundly snoring already, the covers twisted around his ankles, one arm hugging the pillow to his chest. Joey’s opened the door of his room to Chandler sleeping on the couch, having watched TV all night long, for more times than either of them can count. He knows what Chandler looks like when he’s asleep. Mouth slightly open, breathing even. A slight furrow between his brows that never seems to go away completely. Hair mussed up on one side, flat on the other. If Joey closes his eyes right now, he can practically see it already.

But he can’t. Shouldn’t. He grimaces and tries to think about something else. Anything else. Sandwiches. Meatball subs. Babes. Really hot babes with huge knockers. A babe-sandwich, with him in the middle. That usually does the trick.

Tonight, though, it just isn’t enough to push the thought of Chandler from his mind.

So, Joey wrinkles his nose and sighs. He allows himself to think about Chandler for a little bit. Just a little bit. A minute, if not less. He keeps his eyes trained on the seconds hand ticking away. The only hand on the clock he can identify; they’re all the same length, and the seconds hand is the only one perceptibly moving in the dark. Finally, a use for that goddamn clock.

He thinks about Chandler.

He thinks about last week, when Chandler had pretty much fallen onto his knees begging for a cigarette, “Just one, one itty bitty smoke, _please;_ I think I might _die._ ” About how they’d acquiesced – Chandler and Janice had just broken up, though Joey had a weird feeling that she would be back– and poured out into Monica’s balcony to keep Chandler company.

How Phoebe had brought cigars made of gum for the others and how Chandler had tucked himself into the fire escape, a scowl on his face and cigarette smoke spooling and unwinding like thread around him. His hair swept out of his eyes neatly, so neatly maintained even after a full day of running his hands through it. His square jaw jutting out as he listened to Monica bitch and moan about the fuckwads she worked with. His red mouth built for pouting. His plain white t-shirt and plaid boxers snug on his lean frame. His long, tan legs stretched out in Rachel’s lap as she sat beneath him; the only one who didn’t gag when Chandler exhaled. He had calves like the ones on that sculpture by one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

About how Joey couldn’t help but gawk at how _beautiful_ Chandler was.

And then Joey’s insides start squirming, because this is _wrong,_ all kinds of wrong. He feels hot coils writhing in the pit of his stomach, and he shifts to find a comfortable position to lie in.

This was a mistake. This was a mistake. Joey squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth and thinks about anything. Anything but _him._

It’s no use. Joey’s fighting a losing battle. The image of Chandler on the fire escape, face a taut mixture of grimness at Monica's spiel and joy at the nicotine in his lungs, like some ethereal, pajama-clad statue, is burned into his brain. The hazy glow from the streetlight did nothing but catch on Chandler's cheekbones and eyelashes; had glazed off his skin and revealed every freckle on his body that wasn't covered by clothes.

Great. He's going off on a tangerine.

Then, Joey frowns.

Tange - ?

Wait. No.

Going off on a  _tangent._ That's it.  
A tangerine, he's fairly certain, is something else.

He throws the covers off and pulls on some clothes. He pads out of his room as quietly as he can, so that Chandler won’t wake up, and tugs on a coat. The sun has just begun to rise, because the sky outside is murky gray, and not the fathomless black that Joey’s been staring into all this time. Joey sticks a hand into his pocket to find his keys and wallet, before quickly lacing up his shoes. He mentally runs through a list of all the places that’d be open at this hour, and sighs. Time to see if that grocery store ten blocks away makes good on its ‘open 24-hours’ promise.

Joey checks the fridge. Inside is an apple that looks slightly questionable, a tub of yoghurt that he doesn’t even remember buying, two cartons of orange juice that may or may not be rancid, a single French Fry, and a box of Twizzlers. He decides to get anything that Chandler can make a salad out of, because Chandler has a penchant for rabbit food, and some sandwich fixings, because sandwiches. And milk. Joey’s desperate for milk. Cheerios do _not_ taste good with orange juice, rancid or otherwise.

He takes a minute to scribble out ‘buying groceries’ onto the Magna-Doodle, so that Chandler won’t worry if Joey’s not home when the former wakes up, before slipping out of the door.

As he walks along at a leisurely pace, his stride long and ambling, he realizes that maybe apartmentmates isn’t enough to cover it. Chandler is a big part of his life, whether he likes it or not. Everything he did ever since he left his room was keeping Chandler in mind.  _Walk quietly so he won't wake up. Buy the kind of food he likes. Leave him a note so he won't work himself into knots in case I don't come home before he wakes up._

The entire reason he'd left home at fuck 'o clock in the morning was  _because_ of Chandler, now that he thinks about it.

He digs his palms into his eyes and rounds the corner, the little neon-orange sign welcoming him and promising to satisfy all his grocery needs. A grizzly old man with a slight smile helps him find what he needs, and rings up his purchases. "Anything else?" the man asks. Joey opens his mouth to say 'no, thank you', when he purses his lips and grabs a last item to add to his pile.

"Are these any good?" Joey asks.

The man takes the thing Joey's holding. "Dunno. I've never smoked, so I've never needed 'em."

"Me either, but they're not for me."

"Ah, okay." The cashier adds it to Joey's bill. "Whoever you're buying them for must be pretty lucky," the other man says as Joey hands him a wad of cash.

"How does that figure?" Joey frowns. The cashier deftly counts out the change.

"My son-in-law smokes, but his wife never busy him nicotine patches to get him to quit. Said he's a grown man and he can do what he wants."

Huh.

"Yeah, well, thing is my friend is a grown man, too, but I'm always on his case about quittin'. I don't want him to get sick; ," Joey replies as he pockets the change and gathers up the bags in his arms. He's silently hoping that the bags won't tear on the way home. Brown paper is unreliable, but Joey loves seal lions, and the lady at the zoo says that they're in danger because of pollution, so he's stopped using polythene.

"That's what I'm sayin'. You're a good friend. He's lucky to have you."

"I...thanks." Joey can feel his ears redden as he hurries out of the store. He must've been in there for a while; the sun is already out and shining. Yellow taxicabs are starting to clog up the street, and joggers make their way down the footpaths to the park. He squints in the bright light and holds the bags tighter to his chest.

Maybe apartmentmates isn't enough to cover it, after all. A small part of him supplies the word  _soulmates,_ but he brushes aside that thought alarmingly quickly.

Friends will have to do.


	2. The One After Joey Comes Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> exactly what it says on the tin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates every wednesday!

“Mornin’, Joe,” says Chandler when Joey walks into the apartment. Chandler’s sat at the breakfast bar, eating a bowl of something orange with a spoon.

“Mornin’.” Joey sets the bags down on the countertop by the fridge and rolls his shoulders. He opens the fridge door and begins unloading the groceries. He can feel Chandler’s eyes on him. “Whatcha got there?” he asks, as Chandler puts another spoonful in his mouth.

“Oh, it’s orange juice. I put in the bowl ‘cause I thought I could maybe trick myself into thinking it was soup.”

Joey grins. “How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

"It's pretty good."

"Yeah?"

Chandler wrinkles his nose and drinks some more juice. “No, I...I wouldn’t recommend it.” Joey rolls his eyes.

“So…how come you’re up? It isn’t even noon yet,” Chandler asks, smiling in that way that lets Joey know it’s all in jest. Joey looks up, carrots in one hand, a tomato in the other.

“Couldn’t sleep. So, I went out.”

“Huh.” Chandler ponders this. “How come? Something on your mind?”

Joey licks his lips and turns back to the fridge. _You. You were on my mind._ “Nah, nothin’ special.” He stacks the vegetables as neat as he can, then slides the milk carton into the little holder in the door. “Just one of those days, I guess. You know how it is,” Joey says, laughing nervously.

Chandler shrugs and drains his bowl, smacking his lips when he’s done. His face is a puckered grimace. “Remind me to buy the good kind next time, okay? This soup is way too fruity for my taste.”

Joey laughs. “Sure thing, Chan.”

He loves this. He loves their easy talk. How they can just keep on going and going about anything and everything. He loves how he relaxed and calm he feels around Chandler, who thinks he exudes awkwardness and sarcasm. Unbeknownst to Chandler, Joey is thankful that Chandler is the way that he is, because despite everything, his jokes don’t make Joey feel bad about himself, or insecure. Even if a flyaway comment seems particularly scathing, Joey knows Chandler doesn’t mean it to be hurtful.

And besides, when Chandler knocks softly on his door sometime later on in the night, when everything is silhouetted in indigo and violet, and apologizes anyway, Joey’s heart swells. “I didn’t mean that, Joe. I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he would say, his eyes big and blue and earnest. Joey would bite his lip and wave it away nonchalantly.

“You didn’t hurt me; there’s no need to apologize.” But Chandler will do it anyway, and Joey loves that about him.

“Hey, Looney Tunes is on!” Chandler exclaims as he stares at the now on tv, dragging Joey back to the present, and the latter can’t help but smile. Ah, the bland whimsy of Saturday morning cartoons. Nothing like it. “’S your favorite, too,” adds Chandler, one hand on his hip and the other tapping the remote against his chin.

That’s another thing: everyone else makes fun of him for watching cartoons. But not Chandler. Never Chandler. Even though this would be a proverbial goldmine for him, cartoons are territory that Chandler doesn’t wander into. He knows how cartoons were Joey’s only escape as a child, having grown up the first and last boy in an extremely large, extremely loud family. He knows that for Joey, cartoons are like a security blanket. Joey loves that Chandler remembers all of his favorite characters, and sometimes buys the tapes of episodes he thinks Joey’ll like. One time, he got Joey pajamas with Road Runner on them, and even though the others thought it was a gag, but Joey still wears them on occasion. Mostly because he’s so touched that Chandler went out and bought them for him at all.

Really, Joey loves all the little things that Chandler does. All the little things that let Joey know that Chandler cares.

As he pulls a carton of eggs from one of the bags, his eyes cut to Chandler. A thoughtful expression is on the other man’s face as he regards the TV show, brow slightly furrowed and hip jutting out to one side. His weight rests on one leg, and his lips are pursed.

“Wabbit season!” squawks Daffy Duck. “No, Duck season!” retorts Bugs Bunny. A grin splits Chandler’s face and he chuckles softly.

Joey can’t help but smile quietly to himself. When it’s just the two of them, Chandler all but drops his hard, snarky exterior. He does more of that dorky stuff that would normally earn him a few funny looks in Central Perk, for one. Like…like when he cooks, he likes to do it with some tapes in the background. He’ll dance his dance in the kitchen, enjoying himself, and sometimes he’ll sing along. He’ll talk to the chick and the duck and tell them about his day. He’ll flail his arms and make finger guns and sneak bad puns into every conversation. He’ll laugh more, frown less. When they’re alone, Chandler Bing becomes… _Chandler_.

Joey loves that Chandler is so comfortable around him that he can just can just be himself. Joey loves all the little things _about_ Chandler.

Joey…

Joey loves Chandler.

And he freezes, suddenly, dropping the eggs he’s holding. Chandler startles. “Jeez, Joey!” But the mess and the exclamation is miles away, and Joey doesn’t reply. All Joey can hear is the loud _ba-thump_ of his pulse in his throat and ears and toes. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t remember how. What even is air. He can feel panic rising up in his chest, choking him, drowning him. He’s…he’s in love. _Love._

The realization is probably going to kill him.

“Oh, dear _god_ ,” Joey breathes, glancing between the shattered eggs and Chandler. “I…I’m sorry, I’m gonna-gonna replace those, and – oh, fuck…” He claps a hand over his mouth and stifles the urge to scream, or cry, or both. Probably both. God _,_ he can’t even _look_ at Chandler right now.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Chandler sets the remote down on the breakfast bar’s countertop and walks over to Joey. He grabs both of Joey’s wrists. “They’re just eggs,” Chandler says. “If anything, the chick’s gonna have a heart attack, and we’re gonna have some explaining to do,” he adds, chuckling. Joey would laugh, but his throat is bone dry. Chandler’s hands are searing his skin. Joey wrenches out of his grasp.

“I gotta…I have to go.”

Joey stumbles out of the apartment, nauseated.

He ignores Chandler calling him, asking him what’s wrong. He ignores how confused and hurt the other man sounds.

He ignores everything, and keeps walking, head ducked. He walks right out of the building and down Bedford, lips pressed and fists curled. He even ignores the bullets of rain that rip through the sky and splatter on the pavement and on him.

What he _can’t_ ignore, though, is the feeling in his chest that won’t go away, no matter how hard he wills it to.

He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes as he waits for the crossing signal to turn green. “I love him,” he whispers so softly, barely a movement of his lips, just to see what the words taste like.

They’re bitter. Joey blinks back tears and scowls.

"Fuck," he mutters. Fuck indeed.


	3. The One Where Joey Gets Hammered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey u kno how the tags say catholic guilt? here it comes

Joey wants to go to mass for the first time in years.

It’s Saturday.

That infuriates him to no end.

So he waits for Sunday, so he can go to mass, and beg for forgiveness, like he’s always done when things got bad. Bad like this.

He remembers being fourteen and sobbing because he had a not-so-PG dream about his best friend Freddie Steiner. He couldn’t even look Steiner in the eye the next day in school, let alone sit next to him during lunch. “I hope that whatever I did to make you mad at me won’t stop you from calling, Joe,” Steiner had said on the last day of term, before summer. Joey had stared at the ground, unable to talk, as Steiner gave him a hug and said goodbye.

Joey didn’t call Steiner that summer. As a matter of fact, Joey didn’t see or hear from Steiner again, because Steiner moved to North Carolina. What made Joey feel even more guilty was that the blond freckled boy had left thinking that Joey hated him, when the truth was that Joey hated _himself_.

He remembers kneeling at the foot of his bed every night as he said his prayers, whispering for God to fix him, because he was broken, and good boys did not want to kiss other boys, and _why, God? Why did it have to be me?_

On that note, he remembers kneeling in the confessional of his church at random – yet frequent – intervals and crying as he admitted to his sins. He remembers making his voice deeper than it actually was so that the bishop wouldn’t recognize it and realize that the boy begging for atonement was Gloria Tribbiani’s son. Gloria Tribbiani, who made food for the charity drive and raised money to repaint the outside of the Sunday School. Gloria Tribbiani, who invited the bishop and his family for dinner more times than Joey could count (because it was a lot of times, not that Joey couldn’t count very high). Gloria Tribbiani, who raised her children on home-cooked meals and the wrath of God. How her reputation would have been ruined! Joey could never, in good conscience, do that to her – his own mother.

So when she asked him why he looked so flushed after confessional, why his cheeks were red and eyes were puffy, he would lie through his teeth and make some excuse about the confessional box making him feel like he was inside a dusty old coffin. He would brush it aside and laugh it off. Nothing to see here. Everything was a-okay.

Joey can feel the rain soaking into his clothes, but his skin feels hot and angry. He itches absently at the exposed skin above his collar.

He walks himself to a bar.

He buys himself a beer.

And another.

And another.

And another.

He loses track after that.

It’s times like this, that his mind wanders to Chandler. He can’t help it, much as he’d like to, and beer makes him pensive.

“So, pal,” he slurs to himself, “you’re in love.”

He feels a sickening lurch inside his stomach, and everything in his brain, however dulled down by the alcohol, jumps into red-sirens-and-loud-wailing mode. So Joey gets himself a couple more beers and waits until the noise goes away, then tries again.

It’s quieter this time. Good. Quiet enough to hear himself think.

Joey decides that okay, fine, he’s in love, and yes, it’s a terrible thing. But it’s also another one of those things that can be clamped down and tucked away to the far reaches of his mind, never to be brought to the fore of his brain again. Kind of like where he keeps algebra.

Chandler’s probably worried himself into a coma by now.

Not for the first time that day, or the first time that week, Joey wonders what it’d be like to kiss Chandler.

Knowing Chandler, it’d probably be kind of awkward in the beginning. Their noses might bump, or their teeth would clack. Chandler would pull away and turn red and laugh. Joey would smile and pull him back in and kiss him good and slow. Close-mouthed, at first, then he’d slip Chandler the tongue, just a little. He’d push his knee between Chandler’s thighs, just a little. But it’d be enough for Chandler to make that noise he makes when they sprawl out in the Barcaloungers. Joey secretly loves that noise.

He thinks about pushing Chandler down into a Barcalounger, settling into his lap, and kissing him within an inch of his life. He thinks about kissing him against the breakfast bar, and against the bedroom door. He thinks about putting his hands on Chandler’s hips, or cupping the bolts of his jaw, or mussing up his hair while they kissed.

He makes a sour face and drains the bottle in his grip.

Joey can feel himself being ushered out of the bar a few minutes – or hours? Time has become a very fluid concept – later, the bartender keeping a firm grip on his upper arm.

His feet find the way home. His brain is clouded with beer-induced fog and Chandler.

When Joey stumbles back into the apartment, the answering machine blinks red, distracting him from the slow and steady task of peeling off his boots and jacket. He hits the button to make the messages play. There’s only one. From Chandler.

“Hey Joe. If you’re listening to this, it means you got home before I did. So…the reason I’m leaving you this message is because I’m not home. I’m out looking for you, because the way you left earlier…it freaked me out, man.” That voice…Joey knows that voice.

“Chandler?” he asks the machine.

“I don’t know what happened, is it something I did? If it is, I’m really sorry. I waited a couple hours for you, then when you didn’t show up, I called everyone we knew, and when _they_ said that they didn’t know where you were, I went out to look for you. I’m…I’m in Chinatown right now, and I’ll probably be in Nova Scotia or something by the end of the day. Call me when you get this.” A pause. “It’s Chandler, by the way.” And then the line clicks off.

Joey sighs a shaky sigh and puts his head in his hands. He waits a little while, towels his hair off, then calls Chandler’s cell.

“Joey! Thank god! Are you okay?” yells Chandler’s voice after a second.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry. Where are you?”

“Queens.”

Fuck. “Did you visit my ma already?”

“She wasn’t home. Mary-Angela answered the door.”

“What did you say to her?”

“That you were out and I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t tell her you were missing or anything, because she might’ve done me bodily harm.”

“Okay. What did she say?”

“She said try Staten Island.”

“…Chandler, are you on Staten Island right now?”

“The subway back, actually.”

“Why d’you tell me you were in Queens?”

“Because if I said Staten Island I’d sound like a lunatic.”

Joey bites his lip. “You’re not a lunatic. Just…come home, okay?”

“Okay.” And then, “did you end up getting the eggs?”

Joey blinks. “What eggs?”

“The – nevermind. I’ll get some on the way back. Bye Joe,” says Chandler, relief thick in his voice, then the line goes dead.

Joey closes his eyes and blinks back tears. Why is he crying?

He goes to his room and cries anyway.


	4. The One With Janice and Uh-Ohs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> somebody help me think of titles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this came super later and im sorryyyy :((( ive been so busy prepping for inktober and the happy steve bingo and a couple other side projects, art and fic-wise, so @ joseph tribbiani my sweet sunshine child,,,,,,,all you wonderful people who read my fic,,,,,,,, pls forgive me
> 
> A/N: parts deleted on 11/4/18

Joey and Phoebe are playing cards on the Barcaloungers. It’s been a couple of weeks since Joey’s little, ah, _episode,_ but he and Chandler haven’t actually talked about it. They’ve been dancing around it, actually, pretending like it didn’t happen. That suits Joey just fine.

“Go fish!” Phoebe yells triumphantly, throwing her cards in the air. and Joey pauses, surveying his cards, before biting his lip.

“We’re playin’ gin, Pheebs.”

“Oh. Oops.” Phoebe pouts a little as she bends to scoop up the cards.

Joey sighs. “Wait wait, sorry, we were playin’ go fish. My bad,” he lies, and Phoebe’s expression brightens immediately.

“So…I won?”

“Hell yeah you did.”

“Oh yay! Oh, I never win at card games. This is great!” She exclaims happily and claps her hands, and Joey smiles.

Just then the door opens. Chandler walks in, hands in his pockets, his expression as though he’s being tortured into grinning. Joey knows that expression. He frowns.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” says Chandler, grimacing at him and Phoebe.

“I beat Joey at cards!” Phoebe exclaims, proudly holding up a handful of cards as evidence, oblivious.

“Why are you doing that with your face?” Joey asks then, pointing at Chandler.

Chandler shrugs, confused. “Nothing. This is just my face,” he says, shrugging a little too stiffly. Joey squints at him.

“Oh. My. _God,_ ” comes a voice from the doorway behind Chandler, and Joey can feel his stomach drop. It’s the voice of the devil, disguised beneath a fur coat and a bad perm and manicures that could gouge eyeballs out of skulls.

And then... _then_ Joey realizes where he’s seen that Face that Chandler’s making. An awkward mix of pain and slight regret. _No. No, no no no no._

“Joey! It’s been so _long,_ ” says Janice (fuckin’ _Janice_!) and pushes past Chandler to grab Joey’s face in her hands. Her fingernails graze his skin, and she kisses both his cheeks. Joey, still frozen in shock, forgets to vomit entirely. He’s so _stunned._

“H-hey, Janice…” says Joey, swallowing hard, trying not to think of the red lipstick smears on his face. His eyes dart frantically between Chandler and Janice.

She grins and pokes his stomach. “Have you gained a few since the last time we met?” she asks in that nasal voice of hers that makes Joey crave death. And then when Joey looks affronted and replies on the negative, she _snorts,_ in a condescendingly sarcastic way that means “Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that.” Joey wishes he could put his fist in her face. His ma raised him to respect women, but Janice Litman is on a whole other level.

“And Phoebe, oh!” Janice giggles and doubles over to cups Phoebe’s face. “You look like you haven’t slept in _weeks,_ honey,” she tuts, and Phoebe smiles tightly.

“Thanks, Janice."

“Aw, you’re welcome, sweetie. Do you wanna borrow some of my night cream? Does _wonders_ for my skin _and_ I make it myself, so it’s com _pletely_ all-natural.” Phoebe presses her lips into a thin line and shakes her head no.

Joey pushes himself up out of the Barcalounger, stomach writhing because _is she going out with Chandler?_ “Can I talk to you? In the hall?” Joey asks Chandler, fake-smiling and talking through gritted teeth.

“Don’tcha wanna stay in here? Where there’s…y’know, witnesses?” Chandler asks, laughing nervously.

“ _Now_ , please.” Joey grabs Chandler’s wrist. He turns to Janice, smiling polite and sickly-sweet, before saying, “’Scuse us for a moment.” The second she gives them a thumbs-up and starts off on her spiel about night cream to Phoebe again, Joey scowls poisonously at the back of her head.

Chandler bites his lip as Joey drags him out into the hallway, Joey all but slamming the door shut behind them.

“Look, I know you’re mad –” begins Chandler, palms raised submissively, but Joey cuts him off.

“ _Way_ past that. What the hell is she doing here?” he hisses.

“Uh, well, she’s in town for a couple days, so she’s…gonna…be stayin’ with-with…us,” says Chandler in a voice that’s growing quieter by the second, fiddling with his collar and pointedly _not_ looking at Joey.

Joey, surprisingly, does not pick Chandler up and throw him down the stairs then and there. “I see. And you didn’t want to, I dunno, _ask_ me about it first?” he asks, teeth still grinding, smile unwavering somewhat creepily.

Chandler steps closer. “She cornered me in street and followed me home; I didn’t know what to say!” he half-yells.

“Just say no,” Joey retorts in a whisper. “It ain’t hard. Like this, see? _No._ ”

“I don’t want to be stuck here with her as much as you do,” Chandler begins imploringly, when Joey raises two incredulous eyebrows. “Okay, okay, maybe not as _much_ as you _,_ but still. I-I’m gonna go crazy! You know I can’t say no to women. You know she has the mind-controlling powers of a Klingon.”

“First of all, it’s mind- _melding,_ which I don’t even think applies here, and second –”

Suddenly Phoebe laughs a loud, high laugh filled with contempt from inside the apartment. Joey and Chandler freeze. “That sounds _awesome,_ Janice! But I’ve got a, ah, massage thing tonight. Yeah. And I really can’t miss it. ‘Cause, y’know, gotta pay rent and stuff.” A pause. “But hey, I’m sure Joey would love to come to dinner with you and Chandler tonight!” Joey’s eyes widen and Chandler’s face is panicked.

“Of course! I’ll ask him,” squeals Janice, and her heels click. _She’s coming!_ Chandler mouths, flailing his arms.

Joey wracks his brain for something, anything to get them out of this. Suddenly, it hits him. He licks his lips. _This might work._ “Okay,” he whispers, “I’ve got an idea. But you gotta trust me, okay?”

Chandler nods, slightly uncertain.

When the door opens, Joey puts his hands on Chandler’s hips and yank him closer, crashing their lips together.  _This is insane!_ a part of Joey yells. The other part is laser-focused on Chandler's mouth against his, still slightly open in surprise. Chandler makes a muffled yelp, but it’s quickly drowned out by Janice stunned “ _Oh, my god._ ”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy! look how quickly that turned into a fake dating! au
> 
> even though i don't reply to comments (because im extremely knowledgeable about all things technology and also i dont know how to reply to comments) please know that i still read them all the time and they make my heart go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! each time i get one so please please keep commenting!! <3
> 
> (also if someone could tell me how to reply to the comments thatd be great)


	5. The One With the Jellyfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,they talk? is that a valid summary?
> 
> (LISTEN HERE ITS MY GAY PINING PARTY AND I WILL SUMMARY HOW I WANT TO)
> 
> A/N: rewrite posted on 10/25/18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at that! made posting day (fuckin finally)

In hindsight, maybe kissing Chandler just to get rid of Janice wasn’t the _best_ idea.

Monica and Rachel have been drawn out of apartment 20 because of all the commotion (source: Janice). “What the hell is going on?” asks Rachel, eyes flicking between Joey and Chandler accusatorily.

“Chandler and Joey are dating!” Phoebe exclaims, pulling them both into a hug. “It’s about freaking _time,_ too,” she mutters, and Joey tries to pretend he didn't hear that. 

Monica’s jaw drops and Rachel’s hands cover her mouth. “ _WHAT?_ ” they half-yell, half-ask in perfect unison. Phoebe nods excitedly. Joey can’t seem to make eye contact with any of them.

“Chandler?” Janice asks in a small voice. Chandler’s head snaps to face her. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable staying with-with you and Joey now that…well…” she gestures vaguely to the air between Chandler and Joey.

“I understand,” says Chandler, nodding and pressing his lips together solemnly. Joey can tell he wants to cry tears of joy, though.

“I mean, I’m not homophobic or anything like that,” she is quick to add, “but I just – it’s – I don’t wanna intrude on-on you guys.”

“No, yeah, we get it, Janice,” Joey says, smiling tightly.

“Hey!” Phoebe says suddenly, clapping her hands together and grinning. “Debbie’s travelling with her family for the next couple of weeks!”

Chandler, Joey, and the girls share a Look.

“I’ll bite,” Chandler says, then turns to Phoebe, “who’s Debbie?”

Phoebe frowns. “Debbie,” she says again, waiting for recognition to unfurl across their faces. When it doesn’t, she tries again. “Debbie? Debbie my roommate?”

It’s Monica’s turn to frown. “Pheebs, you have a roommate?”

“Yeah, since when?” asks Rachel.

“More importantly, is she hot?” asks Joey, subconsciously tugging on his _don’t-mind-me-I’m-just-another-straight-dude_ façade without even realizing it. Janice swats his arm.

“Chandler is right _there,_ Joey. Don’t be so insensitive,” she chides. Joey swallows. _Oh right. We’re ‘dating’. No sleazy, offhand, heterosexually-stereotypical comments anymore._ Chandler is staring at the floor.

It’s kind of a relief, because most of the time he doesn’t mean half the things he says, flirting-with-women-wise. His ‘game’ comprises of really underhanded comments that are bordering on pervy. But then again, Joey doesn’t actually have a solid frame of reference on how to pass off as a straight guy. His knowledge on the subject comes from his dad, who’s cheating on his ma; his uncle, who’s in jail; Ross, who married a lesbian, and Chandler, who’s slept with all of five women in his whole life (mildly pathetic, when you think about the fact that Joey, who’s pretty freaking gay, has slept with more women this _week._ )

Basically, he comes off as the straightest guy in their whole group, rather ironically, and all he has to do is talk about boobs and how big they were on the girl he banged last night. Also wearing Old Spice and watching ESPN and porn all the time helps.

“Sorry,” Joey mutters, eyes downcast. “Guess I’ve gotten a little too used to pretending,” he says, chuckling nervously. It’s the truth, if you think about it.

Chandler squeezes his wrist and turns to Phoebe. “So, Pheebs…about this ‘Debbie’…she’s your roommate? The kind that everybody can see?”

Phoebe looks irritated. “Of _course_ you can see her,” she huffs, “I mean, _duh_ , she’s a person.”

“Oh, thank god, she’s a person,” Chandler sighs in mock relief, then rolls his eyes. Phoebe’s frown deepens.

“Seriously? I talk about her only all the time.”

“We’ve…never heard about Debbie until right now,” Rachel says quietly.

“You haven’t?” Phoebe asks. The others shake their heads. “Well, isn’t this fantastic. She’s been living with me for years, guys.” Phoebe folds her arms across her chest and wrinkles her nose.

“Honey, did you have a point?” asks Monica. Phoebe nods, lips pursed.

“Like I said, she's travelling. I was gonna offer her room to Janice, if she wanted it.”

Janice gasps and pulls Phoebe into a tight hug. “Do you mean it?” she asks, squealing excitedly.

“Yeah, totally!”

“Oh, this is going to be so _fun!_ I can’t wait.”

Joey can feel Chandler’s body tense beside him. “How long are you in town, Janice?” he asks.

“Just a couple of weeks,” she says, an arm around Phoebe. “That’s all right with you, isn’t it, Phoebe?” Phoebe hums her reply. “Great. You mind if we go over there now? I’ll go and grab my bags from downstairs.”

“No problem. I’ll meet you there and we can get a cab,” says Phoebe, and Janice grins and heads off down the stairs.

“Pheebs! Are you crazy?” hisses Rachel when they can’t hear the sound of Janice’s heels on the stairs.

“What? What’d I do?”

“You want to _live_ with Janice?” asks Rachel. “Freaking _Janice_?”

“She needed somewhere to stay, and I had an empty room; what was I supposed to do, _not_ offer it to her?

“Yeah, yeah, all that goodness-of-the-heart stuff is all well and good, but Pheebs… _freaking Janice!_ ” Chandler exclaims, his tone bordering on hysterical.

Phoebe shrugs. “I’m sorry, is my basic human decency getting in the way of your lives?”

“Chan…” Joey tugs on Chandler’s sleeve. “She can’t stay with Phoebe.” His voice is low, and he hopes Chandler can hear him over the sound of Rachel and Phoebe bickering, and Monica trying to calm them down (“She’s gonna wanna _hang out_ with us!” wails Rachel, who really hasn’t gotten over that time that Janice borrowed her good white boots, only to return them completely muddy, ruined, and a month later.)

“That’s what I’m saying,” says Chandler, dropping his voice to match Joey’s.

“No, no, I mean she can’t stay with Phoebe. She thinks _we’re dating._ ”

Chandler’s eyes widen. He turns to Phoebe, interrupting Rachel midsentence. “Pheebs, Janice can’t stay with you.”

“Yeah? Why?” asks Phoebe, scowling.

“’Cause she thinks Joey and I are dating!”

The hallway goes quiet for a blissful second.

“So what?” asks Monica. “She’s not gonna call the cops on you, is she?” At that, Joey can feel the blood drain from his face. _That’s the kind of world we live in. Janice could call the cops on us. On Chandler. On **me**. But only one of us is really in danger._ His pulse quickens. It's moments like this that make him wish he was someone else. Moments like this that he wishes he was never born. These moments needle fear into his bones; the chilling kind that lasts for days. He shivers a little, just a little. It's enough to earn a concerned glance from Phoebe, though. Joey pretends like he's just shaking out his shoulders, all manly-like. He grunts for added effect. She purses her lips, but says nothing.

“I – what?” Chandler frowns and his eyes dart to Joey. “I mean, I don’t think so. Would she?” Joey makes a noise that sounds like  _"Eh, I dunno,"_ and shrugs, but on the inside, he's hoping that that kiss earlier hasn't got him into hot water.

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Monica says, shrugging.

“But it _is_ a problem,” Chandler insists, “because Joey and I _aren’t dating._ ” Another thick pause. Joey can hear himself breathing.

“Wait, what? What the hell is going on?” Rachel’s face is scrunched in confusion. “Can somebody please explain?”

“Yeah, what happened?” asks Phoebe, and then her expression softens. She puts a hand on Joey’s bicep, squeezing gently. “Are you not ready for us to know yet? Did you not _mean_ for us to find out?” she asks carefully, her voice sympathetic; understanding. If Joey had to pick one of his friends to come out to first, it'd probably be Pheebs. No, wait, scratch that. It'd  _definitely_ be Pheebs. A little part of him wonders why he hasn't done it yet, then he remembers that he's not too comfortable accepting it himself, so he's hardly at a place to go around asking other people to accept him.

Joey then realizes that all eyes are on him. It's his cue to speak, but the words don't form on his tongue. “I-I…well, um –” His hands are shaking. He looks away.

Chandler, bless him, senses Joey’s inability to form a coherent string of thought (or just probably got annoyed waiting for Joey to answer), and interjects suddenly: “There is no ‘we’, Phoebe. We’re not dating. We just told Janice that so she’d stop bothering me.”

Joey clamps his jaw tight and swallows past the hurt lodged in his throat, and when Chandler looks to him for support, he nods stiffly.

“But…but you guys kissed,” says Phoebe, sounding a little confused.

“We had to sell it, y’know? To…to get rid of her,” Chandler says, flailing his arms for emphasis, and Phoebe has a thoughtful expression on her face.

Joey takes a deep breath, and Chandler glances at him for a second. His eyebrows flick up once, asking silently _what?_ Joey can’t bring himself to answer, though, so he does what he seems to be doing all the time, lately. He darts his eyes to the floor and digs his teeth into his bottom lip. He doesn’t look away until he can feel Chandler’s gaze move elsewhere.

“Right. Yeah, okay, sure.” Phoebe nods a couple of times after a while. “Well, this has been fun, but I’m gonna go now. You two, I think, have to talk about…about whatever it is you’re going to do, because Janice is going to be living with me.” Her eyes slide from Chandler to Joey, to whom she gives a terribly knowing look. “No matter how horrifying that is, my mother raised me better." She licks her lips, then frowns. "Actually, wait, it’s more like…like my foster mom, and then my uncle, and then Albino Bob – hold on,” Phoebe huffs and shakes her head quickly. “Never mind. The point is, everyone who raised me raised me to be a good person. So I’m gonna go and make all those people proud by...y'know, 'sheltering the homeless' and what have you. Is that a thing in the Bible? I feel like it is.”

And then, Phoebe leaves, the sound of her heavy boots _clomping_ down the stairs slowly fading.

“So…you really aren’t dating?” asks Rachel. “Huh.” She crumples her hair with one hand and puts the other on her hip. “Well, I could’a sworn you were.”

“’Scuse me?” Joey asks, finding his voice suddenly. It comes out hoarse and unsure, but the question still remains.

“I mean, no offense, Joe,” Rachel begins, “but the first time I met you guys…well, I thought you two were…y’know…” she waggles her eyebrows.

“What? Me and Joey were what?” Chandler asks, frowning.

“Fucking. She thought you and Joey were fucking,” finishes Monica, mildly amused.

 _Can someone die from blushing?_ Joey can feel all the blood in his body rush to fill his ears and cheeks, and he suddenly feels incredibly lightheaded. “ _She thought you and Joey were fucking.”_ What a pleasant notion. Joey risks a peek at Chandler, who has flushed red and has his lower lip pulled into his mouth.

“All right, Mon, thank you, for that incredibly _articulate_ addition to an incredibly _incorrect_ and, frankly, _unnecessary_ assumption made by Rachel,” Chandler says coldly, his jaw taut, a forced grin on his face. He grabs Joey by the shoulders and pushes him back into number 19. “Goodnight, ladies!” Chandler grits out, slamming the door shut behind them, cheeks burning.

“What the hell was _that_ about?” asks Joey when the lock clicks, startled and confused. “'S not the first time someone thought that about us,” he adds slightly pointedly.

“I know _that_ , I just-I don’t...I don't know,” Chandler replies quietly, sounding pained as he wrings his hands together. “I need a drink.” He raises himself onto his toes and pulls a bottle of vodka from the top shelf of the cabinet. A half-empty bottle, actually, courtesy Joey. Chandler pours some out into a glass, then drains it in one go. He sets it back down on the counter, and grips both the neck of the bottle and the glass till his knuckles are white. “This was a bad idea, wasn’t it,” Chandler asks. Or, more accurately, declares.

“Which part?” Joey chuckles weakly, leaning against the breakfast bar.

“All of it,” Chandler says, biting his lip. “Can I just say: I blame Janice. For all misery. Mine, the world’s,” Chandler huffs, throwing himself onto the couch and sprawling in it. His uneasiness seems to have left him, at least a little. Joey notices the tenseness in his shoulders and in the curve of his jaw, but he decides not to remark on it. The girls’ comments really must’ve rattled Chandler, and it’s another reason in the long list of reasons not to come out to his best friend in the whole world _._ Who knows how he’d react? And if Joey told Chandler that he was in love with him, well, he could lose Chandler entirely.

That…

That would break Joey’s heart. He’s barely holding it together as is; duct tape and alcohol can only do so much.

“We can’t…we can’t _stay_ dating, right?” asks Joey quietly, fists balled in his pockets.

Chandler looks thoughtful. “I mean…I don’t think so,” he answers. “We already told the girls that it was a ruse.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you-you’re right.” Joey nods to himself. “So…what do we tell Janice? That we, I dunno, broke up or something?” Just saying those words, those words insinuating ever leaving Chandler, make Joey’s chest tighten, and suddenly he can’t breathe. _Man, am I pathetic or what?_

“That’s probably what we should do.” Chandler cranes his head to left until his neck pops, then sighs. “But she’s gonna think we broke up because of her finding out about us.”

Joey frowns, sitting on top of the breakfast bar and crossing his legs. “That’s not ideal, is it?”

Chandler hums, biting his lip in thought. Joey stares down at his shoes and tries to focus on them, not on the face that Chandler’s making as he mulls over what to do.

“She’s leaving after a couple of weeks, right? All we have to do is-is _pretend_ date until she does. That’s…does that make sense?” Chandler asks.

“Uh…no, yeah, that makes sense.” Those are the words that Joey hears coming out of his mouth, but his mind has gone completely blank as it processes Chandler's solution. “But…but what about the girls?”

“We’ll just tell them that we didn’t mean to tell them so suddenly, and that I freaked out. They’ll believe that, right?” Chandler offers him a half-grin.

Joey laughs a little. Soft, uncertain laughter. He hums his reply, but it doesn’t sound real enough. He grabs the opened bottle from the countertop by the sink and raises it to his lips, determinedly not think about how just hours ago, it was Chandler’s mouth instead of the bottle.

He doesn’t know which he prefers, really.

After a while of sipping hard liquor and staring off into space, Joey puts the bottle on the ceramic countertop with a soft _clunk_ and laces his fingers together in his lap.

“So…as of now, you and me are-are pretend dating?” Joey asks.

“Guess so,” Chandler replies.

Joey licks his lips, nods slowly, then bursts into uncontrollable laughter. And maybe it’s the alcohol that’s making this whole situation a hundred times funnier, or maybe he’s still high from actually kissing Chandler. He doesn’t know. But he’s laughing, and soon Chandler’s laughing too.

“Oh God, this is a first-class mess,” Joey says breathlessly, sides aching.

“Preaching to the choir,” Chandler grins.

Joey manages a grin in return. They stare at each other, grinning like a couple of wackos, until Joey breaks their steady gaze by looking down at his hands. “Well, it’s late. I’m gonna…gonna get to bed.” Joey hops off the counter, screws the cap back onto the bottle, and stretches. Chandler’s cheeks are flushed from laughing, and he’s still smiling giddily, and Joey thinks he’s never seen anybody look so beautiful. His heart, despite everything, still manages to ache imploringly.

“Big day tomorrow?” asks Chandler.

“Yep. Full schedule of stayin’ home and getting through a big bag of chips and the first season of Baywatch.” That elicits another laugh out of Chandler, and Joey hides his smile behind his hands. He beelines to his room, patting the Big White Dog on the head as he passes it. “What about you?” Joey glances at Chandler over his shoulder, hand on the doorknob.

“I’m not tired. I think I’m gonna stay up a little bit,” Chandler says, shifting to his Barcalounger and tucking his feet up underneath him. “Watch some TV, I dunno.”

“You want me to wait up with you?”

“Nah, that’s okay. Get some sleep. Yasmine Bleeth ain’t gonna watch herself jog sensually down a beach in a skimpy bathing suit.” Joey snorts. He doesn’t tell Chandler that he prefers it when Richard Gere is onscreen.

“You sure? I don’t mind. What’re you gonna watch?” Joey asks.

Chandler smiles slightly as he clicks the TV on and flips through the channels. “A…a documentary about…ah, jellyfish,” he says finally, knowing that Joey’s practically allergic to the word ‘documentary’.

“Awesome. I fucking love jellyfish.” Joey says firmly, adamant to sit up with Chandler. For solidarity purposes, of course. When your fake boyfriend can’t sleep, it is your duty to watch nature documentaries with him until he does.

Besides, Joey’s own skin feels electric and supercharged, and when he said he was going to bed, all he’d had planned was to stare at the popcorn ceiling and try not to full-body shudder thinking about that kiss, and wonder if this fake-dating charade entitled him to more kissing.

Chandler huffs out a laugh. The lights are all turned down, and Joey settles into his own Barcalounger. The voice of the narrator – Chandler says it’s the old guy from the Jurassic Park movies – is warm and thick like a blanket, and drowsiness laps at the back of Joey’s mind. He’s falling asleep, but Chandler is wide awake. His chin rests in his hands and his eyes are unblinking and glazed over.

Soon though, it gets a little chilly, and Joey gets up, sighs and stretches himself. He heads to his room and grabs a blanket. “Move over,” he grumbles to Chandler after reemerging from the bedroom. Chandler raises his eyebrows. Joey looks at him expectantly.

Chandler finally relents and clears a spot for Joey in his Barcalounger, popping the footrest and dropping the back as he does. Joey settles into the empty space, then throws his legs over Chandler’s lap and arranges the blanket over them, tucking it to his chin and resting his head on Chandler’s shoulder. Chandler, subconsciously, leans his head against Joey’s.

“Is this weird?” asks Joey, yawning.

“I think it’s weird if we talk about it.”

That’s why they don’t talk about it.

They drift off, eventually, the TV still on, now switched to QVC so Chandler can make snide comments about the products. They drift off, limbs tangled together, Chandler’s chin against Joey’s forehead.

Joey stirs after a while, squeezing his eyes shut and willing himself back into unconsciousness, when he freezes. He hears somebody crying softly.

Okay, he doesn’t hear it, exactly. He _feels_ it, like quiet vibrations in his chest that are coming from someone else, like a synapse jumping from one nerve ending to the other. He stirs a little, eyes blinking open blearily. “Chan?” he mumbles sleepily. Chandler angles his face away from Joey’s just so, to a tilt where darkness shrouds his features and the light from the TV can’t reach.

“Yeah?” Chandler sounds like he has allergies.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? Somethin’ you wanna talk about?”

“I’m good, Joe.” A small part of Joey thinks that he should be more awake and probe further, but another part of him tells him to mind his own fucking business.

“Do…do you want me to go?” Maybe that’s why Chandler is upset. Chandler’s realized how weird this is and he’s mad that he let this happen. That he let it go this far.

“Do you want to go?” Chandler asks quietly.

Joey feels brave, suddenly. “You’re warm and I’m lazy, so you tell me.”

Chandler laughs a breathy sort of laugh. “Okay,” he says, “you don’t have to go.”

So, Joey goes back to sleep feeling kind of uneasy but at the same time unbelievably thrilled that he gets to lie here with Chandler, legs tangled and breathing in tandem.

Briefly, he wonders what it’d be like to do this for real. To be a couple for real. Where they could do this every night, and Joey could reach up and press kisses to Chandler’s jaw and watch him smile in the dark. Or where he could take Chandler by the hand and lead him back to his room and hold him close until sleep overtook them.

His heart begins to ache. The ache isn’t gone by morning. Chandler is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my eternal hugs and gratitude to Leiana for educating me in the fine art of replying to comments. may your life be filled with pizza and lots of vacations.


	6. The One Where They Tell Ross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keeping up the trend that Ross is never there for anything significant so they have to fill him in on it later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cannot believe we've made it this far holy freaking cow?? i mean troublemaker was like seven or eight chapters if memory serves and THAT was my first big finished fic???? and now we're up to chapter six and i've got plenty of stuff planned so when i say slowburn i MEAN slowburn
> 
> hugs hugs HUGS to all the wonderful people who read and leave comments/kudos because you all keep me motivated enough to keep writing!! i love you all <3
> 
> A/N: made some edits on 11/4/2018

“So you two…are goin’ out,” says Ross slightly incredulously, in that weird Jersey accent that he has that Joey feels like he shouldn’t, on account of he’s lived in Manhattan for years now. But maybe that’s just the dislike in Joey talking, because Ross has always been the least accepting of gay men and women in their whole group, after that whole episode with Carol and whatnot. Joey had wanted to sympathize with Ross during that time, he really did, but he’d secretly been thrilled for Carol. Can you blame him, though?

“Mmhmm. Yeah,” Chandler nods, sliding an arm around Joey. They’re squished into the couch, Phoebe and Rachel flanking them.

“Since when?” he asks, eyes cutting between the people on the couch and Monica, who’s sitting in Ross’ usual spot, sipping cappuccino from a large mug and eyeing her brother over the rim. Janice is at the wooden table closest to the counter, flipping through a magazine, but she’s stopped now.

Joey glances at Chandler. “Well…”

“Two…three weeks, maybe?” finishes Chandler, brows slightly raised. _That’s a believable amount of time, right?_

“Yeah, I’d say ’bout three weeks,” Joey says, nodding. _Believable._

“Wow. And to think we had no clue,” says Rachel, shaking her head. “I mean, if you hadn’t come over yesterday,” she begins, gesturing in Janice’s direction (Janice smiles slightly), “we might never have known. These two could’a gone on for years, and right underneath our noses, too.”

“I think ‘years’ might be stretching it a little, Rach,” says Monica. “We would’ve found out eventually.”

“Actually, I don’t think so,” interjects Phoebe before Rachel can reply. “They’re both always hugging and like, putting their arms around each other’s shoulders and stuff. It’s hard to pick up on things around you two. Honestly, for the first few weeks since I met you guys I kind of thought you _were_ going out, but I didn’t say anything.”

“So did I!” exclaims Rachel, and Monica, and Janice. Joey feels his cheeks heat up.

“So you four all just _assumed_ I was gay?” asks Chandler, brows arched questioningly.

“Well yeah, kinda,” shrugs Monica, putting her cup to her lips. “You don’t exactly give off the straightest…” then she scrunches her nose. “What’s the word?”

“Vibe?” supplies Phoebe.

“Exactly. Vibe.”

“Good to know,” says Chandler dryly.

Ross clears his throat. “Can I just…uh…” he makes a weird little jerky movement with his head and smiles awkwardly, scratching at the nape of his neck. “Are we all going to…to go with this?”

Now the girls look confused. “What do you mean?” asks Phoebe.

“Just…” Ross waves his hand vaguely in Chandler and Joey’s direction. “All of this.” Joey’s brows arch up into his hairline just as Chandler’s furrow. “’Cause it’s…it’s a little weird. And kind of illegal.” Their group stills, and Ross shifts uncomfortably where he stands.

“As a matter of fact, we _are_ going to go with this, Ross,” says Janice suddenly, voice menacing, leaning forward in her seat. “Because Chandler and Joey are our _friends_ , and we _love_ them, and we’re going to be _supportive_ of their relationship.”

Joey offers Janice a grateful smile, something he never thought he’d do.

“Yeah. Do you have a problem with that, Ross?” says Phoebe, eyes narrow.

Ross raises his palms. “Nope, no no no. No problem.” He’s laughing nervously. “Let’s all just calm down.”

Phoebe nods with a sort of firm finality, her jaw set, and leans back in her seat. Then Chandler was saying something, cutting the tension with some off-brand joke. Rachel grins at it, so Joey grins too, except he wasn’t exactly listening. Ross keeps giving him and Chandler weird looks as the evening wears on, and even though Joey ignores him, he can’t help but wonder: if he came out to Ross, would he be removed from Ross’ friend circle entirely? Would Ross report him to the police? He can taste this afternoon’s pizza in the back of his throat.

Chandler excuses himself and doesn't come back for awhile. Joey starts to get worried, but he tries to tell himself he's just being irrational. When Chandler returns, he looks more at ease than he's looked ever since Janice showed up, and his clothes stink of...of what, Joey can't identify. Unless, of course, he buries his nose into Chandler's shoulder like a creep, but that is not something he's not willing to do. They may be fake dating, but there are certain un-cross-able lines between them.

For a split-second, Joey toys with the idea of Chandler having smoked, but nicotine has a distinctly disgusting smell, and this is not that smell. He's not imagining this whole situation, either, because Joey notices Rachel wrinkling her nose at Chandler more than once during the conversation. 

Every single thought and suspicion in Joey’s mind soon vanishes without a trace when Chandler rests his hand on his knee, however. Joey stares at it, trying not to look too flustered. He catches Phoebe’s eye, and she winks. He can feel his cheeks reddening.

* * *

 

“Was that weird, earlier?” asks Chandler, teeth worrying his lower lip, slipping off his coat and closing the door of their apartment with his heel. The only light in the apartment is coming from the streetlamp outside. Chandler looks…he…

He takes Joey’s breath away. But what else is new?

Joey all but tears the scarf off his neck. “The whole Ross thing? I kind of expected him to freak out, if I’m being honest.”

Chandler gives him a funny look. “You did?”

“Yeah. You know how weird he gets about this stuff, especially after the whole Carol thing.”

“Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Really?”

“No, he reminds us every day,” Chandler says, rolling his eyes. “But I thought he’d be more mature, y’know?”

“Yeah, well, what can you do?” Joey shrugs.

Chandler hums and stands awkwardly by the foosball table, spinning one of the handles absently. His lips are pursed, and his free hand is shoved into his pocket. He’s nodding to himself, in that way that means he’s thinking about something heavy.

“Penny for your thoughts?” asks Joey after a little bit.

Chandler glances up sharply. “Uh no, nothing special.”

“Come on, Chan, I know you better than that. Gimme a little credit. What’s on your mind?”

Chandler takes a big, shaky breath. “Are you scared, Joe? Or is it just me?”

“Honestly? Kinda,” Joey admits quietly.

“Is this whole… _thing…_ more trouble than it’s worth?”

“I dunno, Chan. We just gotta…gotta see it through now. Nothin’ else we can do.”

“Nothing else we can do,” Chandler echoes, eyes faraway, leaning against the table. “God, this is scary,” Chandler mutters, chin to his chest. There’s a quiet, thoughtful silence. Joey feels brave, all of a sudden, and steps towards him.

“Why is this scary?” he asks softly.

“I don’t know.”

“Talk to me.”

“I…I –” Chandler breathes quickly, looking pained. “This is too much. I can’t.” Chandler looks away.

“Yes, you can. It’s me. Your best friend. Remember?”

“I just can’t. Okay? I _can’t_. This isn’t a thing that I – that I can tell you about. Okay?”

“Chandler –”

“Please, Joey. Don’t push me on this.”

Joey tilts his head slightly. “All right. But if…if you ever wanted to tell me, you know where my door is,” he mumbles, and heads to his room.

Chandler clears his throat behind Joey. Joey stops in his tracks.

“I…I don’t…I don’t exactly know how to navigate this kind of a relationship. I don’t wanna…mess it up.”

Joey turns to face him. “What do you mean? It’s just like a regular relationship.”

“This is different from a regular relationship.”

“It isn’t.”

“Yes, it is, you know it is.”

Joey crosses the floor to him. “It’s not as hard as you think.”

“Did you know how hard it was for me to put my hand your knee earlier? I only did it ‘cause Rach said I looked uncomfortable.”

“It’s not as hard as you think,” Joey says again. “It’s just like dancing. You just gotta find a rhythm and settle into it. You know what I mean?”

“I…what? Dancing?” Joey, by way of explanation, takes Chandler’s wrists and puts them on his shoulders, and then puts his own hands on Chandler’s hips. They begin to sway carefully, testing some flimsy boundary between them.

“Yeah. Everyone dances differently. Some people like to go slow. Some people like to go fast. It takes a little while to figure out what you like, but it’ll happen,” Joey says, then begins humming tunelessly, watching Chandler in the semi-darkness.

“When the hell did you get so smart?” asks Chandler suspiciously after a long pause, and Joey snorts.

“I’ve always been smart. I just let Ross do most of the talking so he won’t feel bad.”

“I stand in the presence of a saint.” Chandler grins.

“Yeah you do.”

They don’t stop dancing, even though it’s not exactly dancing. They just kind of shift their weight from one leg to the other, Joey humming, Chandler thinking.

Chandler’s eyes refocus suddenly. “What if they’re expecting us to do more…y’know, couple-y stuff?”

“Such as…?” Joey prompts.

“I dunno. Hand-holding? Kissing?”

Joey is deeply, deeply thankful for the darkness, because his face turns tomato-red in a couple of seconds, fast enough to make his head spin.

“I don’t want to put us in danger with PDAs,” Joey can hear himself say quietly.

“That’s true,” Chandler acquiesces.

“But it wouldn’t be believable if we didn’t do _something,_ ” Joey goes on.

“Also true.”

“So…what do we do?”

“Maybe we…we start small.”

“I don’t follow.”

Chandler looks torn, for a second. “Like…well, like this,” he says, and then leans forward and presses his lips to Joey’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is my ross bias in this chapter obvious? good.


	7. The One With the Kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO CHAPTERS IN TWO DAYS??? HOLY HELL, BATMAN
> 
> @ everyone who reads this fic: you've brought us this far, you perfect souls

For a minute, time just…stops. Joey’s brain shuts down, and his arms and legs are frozen in place. He can’t move, can’t think, can’t react to anything that’s happening. All he can see are Chandler’s eyes squeezed shut, brows furrowed almost angrily.

Then Joey wonders what he’s doing. He feels something sick and guilty in the pit of his stomach. He definitely does _not_ want to vomit on Chandler. That would be the absolute worst-case scenario. His heart is pounding a mile a minute, and his pulse roars in his ears. Joey can barely breathe. A part of him reminds him that he’ll probably most definitely go to hell for this, and yet…he can’t do anything about it. He doesn’t know if he’s physically able to do anything about it.

He snaps out of his reverie when Chandler pulls away, just a fraction. Joey can still feel Chandler’s exhales on his lips. The other man’s eyes are wide open now, afraid and anxious. Joey hadn’t been kissing back, that’s why the expression on Chandler’s face looks akin to a deer in headlights.

“Oh, my god, I’m so sorry, I don’t…was that out of bounds?” Chandler stammers, Joey can’t think. He can’t think of words to make this better. Chandler winces. “Joe? Joey, please say something.”

Joey just breathes. In and out, one-two. He knows he’ll regret it for the rest of his life if he doesn’t do what he’s been dreaming of doing for weeks, months, _years_ now.

He says nothing as he cups the bolts of Chandler’s jaw and kisses him. He crowds Chandler up against the door and kisses him like it’s the only thing he knows how to do; like it’s the only thing that matters. He kisses him slowly and gently, careful not to stop. Truth be told, Joey’s scared to stop. Joey’s so _fucking_ scared that if he stops kissing Chandler, he’d never be able to do it again. So, Joey lets his eyes slide shut, Chandler’s fingers tangling in his hair, their teeth clacking dully. Chandler tastes vaguely like coffee and…and something else that Joey can’t place. It’s reason enough to kiss Chandler harder; deeper, to figure out what that something else is. Chandler stifles a growl in the back of his throat, and Joey can feel a shudder run down his spine. Chandler’s fingers muss Joey’s hair, and honestly, Joey couldn’t care less about the time he spent trying to make it look presentable this morning. Chandler’s hands make quick work of untucking Joey’s t-shirt from his jeans, and that’s when a small part of Joey finally decides to pull away, even though the rest of him screams not to.

He’s breathing hard, like he just ran a marathon. Chandler's cheeks are flushed, visible even in the dim light. It’s a struggle to swallow; Joey’s throat is bone dry.

“That…what was that?” asks Joey, gasping.

“Practice?” Chandler offers weakly, slumping against the door, looking like a flustered, rumpled mess of a man. _I did that. I did that to him,_ Joey manages to think to himself smugly.

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. Okay. Practice is…practice is good.” Joey feels a thick stab of disappointment in his chest. Icy cold and shockingly real. Painful, in every sense of the word. “Was it okay?” Joey manages to ask. His voice and hands shake. Is this what he wants? Is this what Chandler wants?

"You know what they say: practice makes perfect and what have you. No such thing as too much practice,” says Chandler, eyes almost all pupil and half-lidded. He grabs Joey by the back of his neck and fits his mouth over Joey’s impatiently, hungrily. Chandler licks into Joey’s mouth and that sets Joey’s nerve endings on fire. As he does, though, Joey has a sudden, slightly concerning thought about the underlying taste in Chandler's mouth.

Joey frowns and leans away, Chandler making a sucking noise as their lips part, which is enough to make Joey go weak at the knees. “Chan…are you… _high_?” he asks quietly, hoping against hope that it isn't true.

Chandler regards him curiously. “Nope. Don’t know where you’d get that idea from.”

“ _Chandler_.”

“Okay, okay. Kinda sort maybe…slightly?” Chandler grins sheepishly. “That's probably it. Whew! Thank god you realized. I was starting to feel funny, like I was too hot for my own skin, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a little weird, but it’s all good now. It's just drugs.” Somehow Chandler finds that hilarious, so he bursts into laughter. Joey isn't laughing. He has that familiar, despairing vacuum inside him, a good friend he likes to call That Sinking Feeling. So _that_ was the taste in Chandler’s mouth he couldn’t pin down: marijuana.

Fucking.

Fantastic _._

“When did you even get the time to smoke a joint?” Joey asks.

“Well, you know how I excused myself to go to the bathroom a little while ago?” Chandler asks, leaning in conspiratorially. “I went out back and had a cigarette,” he giggles. Joey tries not to cry.

“Just…one?” Joey asks without much hope, sweeping his hair out of his eyes.

“I, uh, started with one. And then I had…another. And another. And then…and then before I knew it, I’d finished the whole pack,” Chandler says, smiling a dopey smile that breaks Joey’s heart. “Whoops.”

“You…you don’t even have any weed on you,” Joey winces, pressing his lips into a thin line.

“That’s what I thought too! Except my coat must’ve gotten mixed up with someone else’s, because there was a pack of joints in my pocket that looks a lot different from the kind I usually get, but I wasn’t suspicious, because cigarettes are cigarettes, y’know? Now that I've finished it, though, I’m high as a fucking _kite._ So it can't have been mine.I'll tell you this: itfeels great, though. Why don’t people get high all the time?” Chandler asks the question genuinely. “I’m pretty sure if we all got really high, every second, of every day, we’d probably solve like, world hunger or something.”

Joey clenches his fists and starts to walk to his room. Chandler probably doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Chandler probably doesn't even know what he's rambling on about. Chandler probably won’t even remember this tomorrow. Tears sting Joey’s eyes. He really needs to be alone right now.

“Joe? What are you –?” Chandler catches up to him and grabs his wrist. “Where you going? Was the kissing not good?”

“That’s not what I…not why I’m –”

“Well, if it wasn’t bad, we should do it some more, shouldn’t we?”

Joey harrumphs. “…You know what? I can’t kiss you when you’re like this, Chandler.” He twists his hand out of Chandler’s grip.

Chandler looks hurt. “Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I don’t wanna take advantage of you, okay?” Joey sighs. “This isn’t fair to either of us.”

“But what if I told you that I want to kiss you? Doesn’t that make it allowed?” Chandler whines.

“Go to bed, Chandler. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Chandler pouts, but goes to his room anyway, muttering a soft “’Night, Joey,” as he does. The door snaps shut softly. 

Joey sighs and goes to his own room, stripping off his clothes till he’s just in his undershirt and boxers, and throws himself onto his bed. The pillow muffles his sobs as he crushes it against his face and cries. Body-trembling moans; agony that doesn’t end. Joey’s just so fucking tired of it all. For one beautiful moment, he’d hoped that maybe, _maybe_ Chandler felt something for him, and that their kiss was the start of something new, something _real._

He shouldn’t even be surprised that it’s not at all what he expected, because the universe is not kind to people like Joey Tribbiani. The universe doesn’t allow smart, kind, funny people like Chandler to have feelings for bottom-dwellers like Joey. Chandler will probably find someone on his level, someone perfect for him, and they’ll fall in love and get married and have an apple-pie life with two kids, a house in the suburbs, and maybe a dog. Joey will die alone, friendless, forgotten. That's what's waiting for them at the ends of both their roads. Guys like Joey don't get the kinds of happy ending that are guaranteed for guys like Chandler. That's how this works. It breaks Joey's heart to think about it (and god knows it's already broken enough), but it's the truth. 

“If you told me that you _wanted_ to kiss me, Chandler Bing,” Joey whispers to his room, curled on his side, knees tucked to his chest, breathing hitched from all the crying, “I wouldn’t believe you for a single damn second.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ everyone who thought the angst would get resolved.......you thought wRONG


	8. The One After the Kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry in advance for this chapter it was an attempt to murder my wife

They share chaste, close-mouthed kisses during the day, holding hands and hugging and smiling like lovestruck idiots at each other at frequent intervals, even more so when Janice is around. The girls think it’s cute; Ross is still trying to wrap his brain around it.

When they’re alone, though, they don’t talk as much as they used to. Joey finds that he can barely be in the same room as Chandler without wanting to grab him by the shoulders and either punch him in the face or kiss him out of his mind. Chandler, for his part, doesn’t give Joey much attention, because he’s never alone with Joey if he can help it. Joey wants to complain, wants to talk to Chandler and figure this thing out, but he’s tired. He’s so damn tired. Of this; of everything. He maneuvers through his day with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his bones ache.

It’s on a night like this when Joey, lying on his bed, eyes closed but not asleep yet, hears a soft knock on his door. He takes his time to sit up, swing his legs over the edge of the bed, and pad to the door. He opens it even slower.

Standing in the doorway is Chandler, suddenly pitching forward into Joey’s arms, drunk six ways to Sunday. Joey’s just glad he only took off his shirt and kept his pants on before he went to bed.

“Chandler? Woah – _hey,_ ” Joey curses a little under his breath as he widens his stance to support Chandler’s weight. The fumes of alcohol and sweat drip from Chandler. “How much’ve you been drinking?” Joey asks, wrinkling his nose.

“I dunno,” Chandler mumbles, shrugging exaggeratedly. “I can actually hear my liver cursing me, if I squint hard enough,” he says, slurring thickly, squinting his eyes as he does.

“Okay, that makes no sense, even to me,” Joey frowns. 

"It'll make sense in about a minute or two, when you get on my level,” Chandler says, tipping his head in the direction of the couch. Beer bottles are strewn all over and around it, like a minefield. Joey can bet that they’re all empty.

“Chan…as appealing as that sounds, I’m not getting drunk tonight. I have an audition tomorrow and I can’t do it with a hangover.”

Chandler drops his head to rest on Joey’s chest and sighs. “Yeah, no, I get it. I’ll just…I’ll go home,” he mumbles weakly against Joey’s skin. Joey tries not to shudder; he carefully holds Chandler at arm’s length.

“Home, Chan?”

“Yeah. Over…over there,” Chandler says, waving his hand at his door, not looking up.

There’s a long pause, and Joey can’t help but break it, albeit hesitantly. “I feel like there’s something wrong,” he says, and Chandler gives him an oddly surprised look.

“Yes. No? No.”

“You can tell me if somethin’s botherin’ you, you know that, right?”

Chandler scoffs. “I know that. And I’d tell you, for sure, in the event that something was wrong. I’m not telling you now because there’s nothing wrong. I’m fine. I’m just _dandy,_ ” Chandler says, then takes a few steps away from Joey. “See? Perfectly fine. A-okay. I’m…gonna go now.” Chandler tries to head to his room, but he trips over himself. Joey grabs him as he hits the ground. They go down together, sprawled in a big tangled heap on the floor, rumpling up the carpet. In that disgustingly cliched fashion, Joey’s mouth is an inch from Chandler’s. Joey can feel Chandler breathing, can count the splay of freckles on his nose and cheeks.

Even though every fiber of Joey wants to close the distance between them, the sane part of him angles his head away so he won’t be tempted. _Crisis: averted._

When Chandler grabs Joey’s jaw and kisses the corner of Joey’s mouth hesitantly, Joey wants nothing more than to kiss Chandler properly. Perfectly. Like every single person he’s ever made out with was only practice to get it right with Chandler.

But that’s not allowed. That’s not what they’re supposed to be doing here.

“Let’s get you…let’s get you home, okay?” Joey mumbles, hauling himself to his feet and leading Chandler to his room. Chandler climbs into bed, head in his hands. Joey tugs the covers up to the other man’s chin and allows himself a small moment to simply watch Chandler’s eyelids fluttering as he drifts off; his lips gently parting as his breathing evens out.

* * *

The next morning, Joey wakes up to the smell of pancakes. He frowns as he rubs his eyes blearily and opens his door. Chandler is in the kitchen, making pancakes (surprise, surprise), and he looks like nothing’s wrong. He probably doesn’t remember last night at all.

“Oh hey, morning, Joe!” says Chandler brightly, but his eyes are nervous. His hangover seems to have vanished completely.

“Hey, Chan,” Joey replies, trying his best to maintain the impression that nothing is wrong.

Joey hums and takes a seat at the counter. Chandler piles pancakes onto his plate, then makes himself a plate too, before leaning against the foosball table and taking slow bites, watching Joey scarf down the food.

“Good?” Chandler asks.

Joey glances up and tries to speak through a mouthful of pancake and whipped cream, but finds that he can’t, without spraying bits of food everywhere. He ends up nodding enthusiastically and giving Chandler a double thumbs-up. Chandler grins.

When they finish eating, Chandler watches cartoons. Joey showers and pulls on a sweater and jeans. He packs his script, a bottle of water, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a Snickers into a backpack: his standard audition survival kit. Monica had made the exact same thing for him years ago, back when she and Phoebe had been living across the hall together for just a few weeks. Chandler had been working late that night, and Joey had expressed his nervousness at the audition the next day to the girls. They had, in turn, helped him run lines, and Monica had taught him to take a bag with him in case he got hungry. She’d made him a ham and cheese sandwich back then, and Phoebe had snuck a Snickers bar into his pocket with a wink. It’s been a long, long time since then, but old habits die hard, and Joey’s not ready to let this habit go just yet.

He’s still got about a half-hour or so before he has to leave, so he settles in on the couch to go through his script one more time, tucking his legs beneath him and resting his chin in his hands. His eyes dart up once, when he hears Roadrunner’s laugh, and then sees that Chandler’s staring at him with an expression on his face like someone just kicked him in the crotch.

“What? Somethin’ on my face?” Joey asks, hand flying up to touch his cheek, a furrow between his brows.

“No…no. I…Can I talk to you?” Chandler asks, clicking the TV off with the remote and jumping to his feet.

“Sure.” Joey stands too, but only because Chandler’s doing it.

“This whole thing…I don’t know if I’m ready for it, Joe,” Chandler begins quietly, and his voice is so careful and earnest that he can’t not make eye contact. Chandler’s eyes are pretty much all pupil. Joey frowns harder, pulling his lower lip into his mouth.

“This being…?” Joey prompts slowly.

“The you-and-me-dating-thing,” Chandler explains, gesturing to the space between them.

“Really? Why?” Joey tries not to let the disappointment welling up inside his chest undercut his tone. He tries to sound relieved, even. Thank god he’s an actor; he’d never be able to pull any of this off otherwise.

“Because I’m a weirdo, okay? Because this is confusing and scary and something…my-my dad would do.” His voice is shaking, now. “Look, I’m not him, Joey. I can’t be him. I just can’t.”

Joey is desperately trying not to look too disbelieving, or like he’s breaking on the inside. A wince works its way onto his face anyway. “What are you getting at, Chandler?” he asks through gritted teeth. _Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it. Please don’t._

“I can’t be…be _gay_ ,” Chandler’s voice stumbles on the last word, as if it’s something that shouldn’t be said aloud. Something to lock up inside a box and hide away for as long as possible, maybe even longer than that. It feels, to Joey, like a punch in the gut. “I can’t. I’m not. He is, I’m not. I _can’t._ I won’t. I’m sorry. This has to stop.”

Joey feels tears sting his eyes as he pushes himself to his feet and steps away from Chandler. He balls his hands into fists. Chandler stands up unsteadily.

“ _You_ kissed _me_ that day,” Joey says tightly, angry now because he doesn’t know what else to feel. Hurt? Why? Did he expect Chandler to declare his undying love for Joey too? And then what? They’d ride off into the sunset together, happy and together and in love? Was that why Joey feels so empty now?

Immediately, Chandler knows which day he’s referring to. “I know, I know, but I was stoned and it –”

“It what?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time?” Chandler tries.

“Why the hell would that seem like a good idea at _any_ time?” Joey’s voice goes up an octave.

“I don’t know!”

“All right, okay, okay. Well, what if you _were_ like your dad, huh?” Joey feels that anger growing in the pit of his stomach. Painful, boiling anger, rising up the back of his throat and turning his mouth sour. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Yes, actually, it would!” Chandler retorts, and now he’s angry, too.

“Well tough fucking shit, Chandler! Some of us are gay and some of us aren’t, get the fuck over it! Why are you making such a big deal outta this, anyway? All I’m doing is trying to help you get out of your own goddamn grave,” Joey snaps.

Chandler’s brow scrunches and his jaw juts out threateningly. “And who the fuck asked you to do that by _kissing me_? Was that the only thing you could think of doing? Fuck, Joey, if I didn’t fucking know better I’d say you were a –”

Joey grabs Chandler’s collar and pushes him against the wall, pinning him there.

“I was a what, Chandler?” he growls, voice low, upper lip curling away from his teeth. Chandler looks stunned, and he doesn’t reply. Joey crowds up against Chandler, yanking his collar. “You’d say that I was a homo, wouldn’t you?”

Chandler can only stare, eyes searching Joey’s face for who the hell knows what.

“Well guess what, Chandler? I am. And now it’s out there: your best friend is a homosexual. Your best friend is gay,” Joey yells, fingers tightening into Chandler’s shirt, wrinkling the material. “Get. Fucking. Used to it.”

He releases Chandler’s shirt, scowls, and grabs his bag, already leaving.

"Joey!" Chandler yells, suddenly coming to his senses. His face is red, and he looks like he's about to cry. Joey turns away. He can’t even look at Chandler right now. He stands in the door, eyes low, fists clenched, when he pauses and decides that Chandler cannot have the last word.

“Oh, and this time, don’t fucking try to find me,” Joey snarls into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him, just as Chandler screams "Wait!".

For the first time in weeks, months,  _years_ his head is quiet. His body is numb.

He wishes that he could be done with this; all of this.

But he has an audition to get to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry for this chapter it did infact murder my wife


	9. The One At the Willick-Bunch Apartment

“Joey?” asks Susan sleepily, rubbing her eyes, standing in the doorway in a baggy t-shirt that says EYES UP, PERV and dark gray sweatpants. Her hair is messy and braided. She regards Joey with faint recognition. _One of my wife’s ex-husband’s friends,_ she seems to realize rather slowly.

“Hey, Susan. I’m sorry to bother you; I know it’s late,” mumbles Joey quietly, eyes on his shoes, clutching the straps of his backpack tightly.

Susan frowns at Joey, more out of concern than annoyance. “What are you doing here?”

“I just…I can’t go to my house, and I – you’re the first people that came to mind.”

Now she frowns with confusion. “I’m sorry, came to mind for what?”

“Do you mind if I stayed here tonight?” Joey blurts out. “I can sleep on the floor if you want. I’ll be gone by morning; no breakfast or shower privileges or anything, I swear.” Joey bites his lip to stop himself from rambling any more. “Please?”

Susan scrunches her nose in thought, and then rumples her hair with one hand. “Okay,” she says finally. “I can make up the couch for you. Unless, of course, you prefer the floor?” she adds, smiling coyly.

“Couch sounds fantastic,” Joey says, trying not to sound too thrilled.

“All right. Come on in,” Susan says, putting one hand on Joey’s shoulder and squeezing gently before leading him into the apartment.

Joey hasn’t actually been to Susan and Carol’s apartment alone before. There was a Christmas party that they’d hosted a year or so after the divorce, and they’d invited Ross and the gang over out of obligation more than anything else. This became a regular, awkward gathering for the next few years, and then it had sort of petered out, after both parties had stopped feeling like they’d owed it to the other to invite and to attend. All he had to go on was memory, and even though he’d gotten the name of the street and the number of the apartment building right (achievement!), he could barely remember the door number; that’s why even though his audition had gotten over about three hours ago, he’d only just found the right door. Either way, their neighbors, suffice it to say, are not pleased.

Inside, the place is well-lived-in, like the cover of some interior decoration magazine, the kind that’s still in plastic wrappers that Monica keeps in her bathroom, but one that looks like a family lives in it. There’s a playpen in the corner, and a thick blanket on the floor with toys and building blocks strewn over it instead of a coffee table. Two big pairs of shoes and one little pair of shoes lined up against the wall by the door, where Joey keeps his own shoes when he toes them off, and a rack of coats: two big, and one little. A few dirty dishes in the sink. Empty mugs on the kitchen island. CD cases on top of the TV. The place feels warm and inviting, even in the dim light, and Joey gratefully accepts Susan’s offer of something to drink.

“We don’t have alcohol here anymore. Y’know, since Ben came around,” Susan explains as she rummages through the larder. “But I know for a fact that Carol keeps some Schnapps in the back for when she’s had a long day.” Susan grins at Joey, holding up a half-empty bottle in one hand.

“You don’t think Carol’s gonna mind?” he asks.

“She knows I know she has it. We don’t discuss it; we just make sure Ben doesn’t get to it, and we replace every so often. It’s one of those things,” Susan says, shrugging and pouring some out into two cups. She makes her way back to the couch and hands one cup to Joey, then sits down on the couch beside him and takes a long sip from her cup.

“This is good stuff,” Joey mumbles appreciatively. Susan hums into the cup. They drink for a while in companionable silence. During that time, Carol wanders in, and looks only mildly surprised when she notices her wife and Joey drinking quietly on the couch.

“Hey Joey. What’s going on?” she asks, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She gets herself a glass of water and pulls her hair up into a bun before settling down in an armchair and tucking her legs underneath her.

“Um…well, basically Chandler and I got in a fight, and I can’t be around him,” Joey explains.

“So you solution is…to hide out here?” Susan asks, frowning.

“Pretty much. I mean, not hide here _forever_ , but I’m probably going to avoid him for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Carol asks.

“I’m thinking till maybe one of us dies,” Joey says.

“Come on, Joey. What could you have possibly argued about that is so bad that you’re just never gonna see Chandler again?” Susan swats his shoulder, rolling her eyes.

“I…well, okay, the only reason I’m telling you guys this at all is because I know you’re not gonna use it against me and that whatever I’m about to say won’t leave this room. Right?” Carol nods solemnly. Susan crosses her heart with her index finger.

Joey takes a deep, steadying breath, then drinks more Schnapps for luck. He sets the cup on the coffee table and keeps his eyes trained on it firmly.

“I…I came out to him.”

For a moment, there is only thick silence. The women say nothing, both looking thoughtful. Then they put down their cups and pull Joey into a tight hug. He can’t believe that they haven’t even questioned him; that they’re just accepting him for who he is. He wishes more than anything that everybody could be like them. Just being around them makes his heart hurt a little bit less. In this moment, he loves Carol and Susan so fiercely, he can feel tears sting his eyes. He wants to thank them, but he has the feeling that if he opens his mouth right now, he’s going to start bawling his eyes out. So all he can do is hug them back and hope that maybe they understand how much the gesture means to him. That, and try his hardest not to cry.

“We’re so proud of you, Joey,” Carol whispers.

“Yeah, Joey. That ain’t easy; you’re a really brave guy,” Susan adds.

They pull away, each of them holding one of his hands in their own. Joey pulls his lower lip into his mouth. “I assume he didn’t take it well?” Carol says quietly, rubbing his knuckles. Her hands are warmer than Joey’s.

“I don’t know. We were arguing about something else, and then it just sort of…I just blurted it out while I was yelling at him. I left before he could say anything. God, I was so mad at him,” Joey admits, teeth grinding, then he sighs. “Does…does that make me a bad person? For walking out after throwing that in his face? What if he hates me?” he asks worriedly.

“First of all, you’re definitely not a bad person for that,” Susan assures, squeezing his hand. “As to why you said what you said when you said it, you can’t blame yourself for it. Bottling up all that stuff…it’s not easy, and it certainly isn’t healthy. It can do things to people. Painful things. I mean, we would know,” Susan says slightly bitterly, and Carol kisses her temple, putting an arm around her. Susan glances at Carol and leans into her gratefully. Joey’s heart melts. He hopes that someday, someone will look at him with as much love as these two look at each other.

“Listen to me, Joey,” Susan goes on, “Chandler’s your best friend. I’m sure it’s been hard keeping such a big part of yourself from him. And I know he wouldn’t do anything but be supportive of you, no matter what.”

“Exactly. I’m sure he just wants to talk to you and figure this whole thing out,” Carol says.

“Yeah, well, I’m not going back there,” Joey huffs after a moment of thought, folding his arms over his chest stubbornly.

“You live there,” argues Carol.

“So? I’ll – I’ll move.”

“Joey,” Carol frowns. “You’d rather move away than talk to your friend?”

“Pretty much,” Joey shrugs.

Susan rolls her eyes. “It’s not our place to ask what you fought about, so we’re not gonna. But the least you can do is give Chandler a little bit of credit,” she says. “Maybe you’re afraid of what he _might_ do, so you’re preparing yourself for the worst, even though you don’t know for sure what he _will_ do.”

Joey hates to admit it, but his arguments are starting to feel futile. He can kind of get the logic behind what Susan’s saying.

“I guess that makes sense,” he sighs. “Okay. I’ll…I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

Susan smiles and Carol rubs his shoulder comfortingly.

“But what if I’m right? What if he hates me? What if he kicks me out?” Joey asks, trying to keep his hands from shaking. He gets sick just thinking about it. The Schnapps in his stomach starts to rise up the back of his throat. He fights to keep it down.

Susan and Carol exchange a glance. “In that case, you can come live with us until you find your own place, and in the meantime Susan and I are gonna punch Chandler in the face,” Carol says firmly, and Susan nods.

This time, when Joey goes in for another hug, he really does cry.


	10. The One About Kip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey goes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys!! Guys I'm not dead!!!!! I'm sorry for not updating in Literally A Year but Life got super busy and then my muse took a vacay so I didn't want to update with something that didn't do these guys justice, and with something that wasn't the ending that they deserved. But!! Here we are (finally)
> 
> The summary has tWO meanings *gasp* and it'll make sense in the end dw

“Joe?” Chandler's voice is small and soft and scared.

“Yeah,” Joey says, clutching the strap of his backpack in his free hand, the other still curled in a fist from when he quietly rapped his knuckles against the door of apartment 19 not moments ago.

“You came back,” Chandler says flatly, disbelieving.

“Yeah.”

“I thought you weren't going to.”

“So did I.”

Carol and Susan had allowed him to stay for another night. Joey had helped with laundry in return, and had even offered to watch Ben while they went to the movies - contrary to popular belief, Joey is perfectly capable of taking care of babies; he's had more than enough practise babysitting his sisters. Carol and Susan took him up on his offer, but instead of going out, they took a well-deserved nap that lasted most of the day. Joey made dinner. They'd eaten together, and watched a few episodes of Baywatch (the show has universal appeal, apparently), and Joey had left, Carol and Susan reminding him that he could always come back if things went south. He held that promise close to his heart.

“You wanna come in?” Chandler asks, uneasy. He looks like a mess. He reeks, like he hasn't had a shower since Joey last saw him, and the shadows under his eyes are so prominent that he probably hasn't slept since then, either.

“Okay.”

There are empty bottles everywhere, and the heady smell of old beer seems to make the air thick. Joey wrinkles his nose and puts his bag down by his Barcalounger, which appears to be the only verifiably untainted spot in the apartment. Blankets are bunched up on the couch. Chandler must've slept there (if he had slept at all).

“Can we talk, Joey?” Chandler wrings his hands and bites his lip.

“I don't have anything left to say to you,” Joey says, jaw tightening.

“I know. I…I need to say something to you, though. Will you just hear me out?”

Joey sighs. “Fine.”

Chandler nods and takes a deep breath, standing by the peninsula in the kitchen, putting as much space as he can between him and Joey. “You remember Kip, right?”

Joey thinks for a second before answering, “your old roommate, yeah. What about him?”

“I haven't been completely honest with you about him,” Chandler begins slowly. “We…uh, we…well, weren't… _just_ roommates.” Joey raises an eyebrow. “I mean that we were…going out. With each other,” Chandler says, hazarding an attempt at an explanation. Silence fills the space between them, heavy and suffocating. Joey can feel it resting on his shoulders and squeezing his chest.

“Oh,” is the only sound Joey can hear coming out of his mouth.

He feels like this should be a bigger deal, that he should be louder, angrier, making a scene. He wonders if he should be feeling something. Hurt. Disbelief. Shock?

But Joey's just tired. Tired and numb.

“You're not mad?” Chandler asks, and the question is genuine.

“I'll decide if I'm mad or not when you're done talking,” Joey replies. “Unless that's all you had to say."

Chandler licks his lips and nods slowly, watching Joey like he still half-expects him to lose his temper and run away again, this time for good. But Joey doesn't move.

“No, no no. I'm not done. Kip was, um,” Chandler begins again, fumbling for the right words like he always did when he got especially nervous. “I had big feelings. For him. I thought…maybe he had them for me. We…we were in bed one night, and I told him. I told him that I thought I might be in-in love…with him. And he told me that -”

Chandler’s resolve seems to crack as he cuts himself off by rubbing his face and swallowing thickly. He steadies himself on the edge of the countertop and tightens his hands into shaking fists. Joey makes no comment, only waits for him to continue. He doesn't dwell on anything that Chandler is saying for too long, because he knows that if he tries to, he can't take it. He can't. He'll fall apart and he'll stay that way. He stays quiet.

“He told me that he’d...been cheating on me.” Chandler's voice cracks and there are tears sliding down his face. “He told me he didn't want to lie to me anymore. He...” Chandler's gaze unfocuses while his brain probably replays that night for Chandler inside his head. There's sadness in his eyes like Joey hasn't seen before, and there's the weight of everything in the world tied to him and dragging his body down.

“He broke my heart, is what I'm trying to tell you, Joey,” Chandler says, the words tightly coiled and trembling. “He broke my heart,” he says again, and Joey can't look at Chandler anymore, because he can feel his own heart breaking for his best friend who's been suffering like this for years without any indication. It's been so long since Kip moved out, but the wounds are still there, still raw, still bleeding out. Tears slick Chandler's cheeks but there's no sound from Chandler, no sobbing. One hand on the counter and the other covering his mouth, he lets himself cry on mute. His shoulder shake, his eyes squeeze shut, and he looks like he's willing it to stop but it's not working. Joey can't help but wonder how much this has been hurting Chandler, how many times Chandler has thought about Kip and cried himself to sleep. How Joey never even knew, and he was just a wall away.

“He moved out and…I decided I was done. With all of it,” Chandler says after awhile, though the silent crying hasn't stopped. His eyes stare down at the floor. “I didn't date any guys after that. I couldn't. Because I was scared. I-I couldn't handle it if someone did that to me again. I couldn't.”

Then Chandler's eyes cut to Joey. His smile is pained. “And then you moved in.”

Joey's stomach drops.

“You moved in and you were…god, I was screwed the second I met you,” Chandler laughs humorlessly. “I knew if I let you live here, I'd go and get hurt all over again. And I knew it'd hurt more this time, because it was…it was _you._ You were kind and smart and you were so _good_ to me, Joey. I knew it'd hurt even more when you'd leave.”

His eyes stay fixed on Joey's. “I guess I wasn't wrong.”

Joey can't-

He can't believe what he's hearing.

“I was hurting you?” Joey asks, and it sounds like a stupid question even as it leaves his mouth. He doesn't know what else to say. “How?” he adds, but that just makes it sound worse.

Chandler glances up at him. “Tell me something, Joe,” he says, tilting his head. “When you see a…a sandwich that you really like, and you haven't eaten all day, so that makes you want it even more, but you can't afford it because you're broke. How do you feel?”

Joey frowns. “I mean I'd be bummed out for sure, but it's-it's just a _sandwich_ , y’know, and -” Joey stops when Chandler raises his eyebrows. And then it dawns on him that maybe…it isn't _just_ a sandwich. Joey swallows. “Wait. Am I the…?”

“Yeah,” sighs Chandler.

Joey opens his mouth and closes it again a few times. “Oh _,_ ” he says finally. And then as more of that sandwich metaphor reveals itself to him, he covers his mouth with his hand. “ _Oh._ ”

The silence that follows seems to stretch on to infinity.

“You can go now, if you want to. I’ll understand,” Chandler mumbles before perching himself on the countertop, burying his face in his hands. “I'm…I’m done.” And Joey doesn't know if he's talking about the fact that he's finished talking, or he's done being hurt, or he's done with Joey, or all three.

And Joey's scared. He doesn't know how to handle this, and everything he hasn't allowed himself to feel over the years suddenly comes crashing into him. All the anger, the pain, the _want_. Everything. His mind is a tangle of chaos. He’s everywhere: back in the confessional; in his house in Queens with a stolen magazine of male models, his right hand, and gut-twisting shame; at the coffeehouse telling Ross; in the hallway where he kissed Chandler; at Carol and Susan's; aft the bar; at the grocer’s - and at the same time he's here, in his apartment, discovering that the man he's been in love with from the moment they met maybe feels the same way.

He doesn't know what to make of all this, but he does know that he can't leave. Not now. There's too much unsaid. His throat feels tight.

“What if…what if the-the sandwich wanted you too?” Joey asks quietly, voice barely rising above a whisper. Chandler’s head whips up and his eyes are big and blue and Joey can't breathe, he couldn't if he tried.

“What?”

“I asked what would happen if the sandwich…wanted you too.”

Chandler looks hopeful. It's small, but it's there. His lips are parted and his exhales come in hard.

“ _Does_ the sandwich want me?” There's a pause.

“He does. He does,” Joey blurts, nodding and eyes stinging with the admission. “He's always wanted you. He drinks himself stupid because he wants you so _bad_ but he can't have you. He makes you laugh because…because the sound of you laughing is enough for him to get through the day. He can't sleep because he knows he'll dream about you.” He's crying now. Chandler looks stricken.

Then Joey crosses the floor to him and takes his hands, guiding Chandler's palms to rest over his heart. He can feel it pounding against his ribs and he knows Chandler can feel it too.

“His heart gets like this every time you smile at him. It gets like this when he thinks about you. He…he loves -” Joey pauses, heaves a shuddering breath, tastes salt on his tongue from his tears.

“ _I_ love you. I’m in love with you. I love you so much, Chandler. I -”

Chandler grabs the collar of Joey's shirt and fits their lips together, eyes sliding shut. The loud train of thought in Joey's head grinds to a halt and his whole world reduces to Chandler’s mouth moving urgently against his own, and Chandler holding onto him like it's the end of the world.

Joey’s hands grip Chandler's thighs and Chandler tastes like…like _Chandler_ , not marijuana or alcohol, and Joey feels like he could kiss him all day for the rest of his life and not get bored, ever. Chandler's hands moves from his collar to the back of his neck and pull Joey closer, to stand between his knees, fingers carding and mussing through his hair. Chandler tries to find a better angle by tilting his head, and Joey pushes back, tongue licking into Chandler's mouth. The four o’ clock shadow on Chandler's jaw grazes Joey's fingertips, but Joey doesn't care. He loves it. Chandler moans low in his throat as Joey's teeth skim over his bottom lip. The sound sends a shudder down Joey's spine. His skin is on fire, his head spins, and his heart hammers in his throat.

Then Chandler pulls away by degrees with a soft suck, until their lips aren't touching anymore, but they're still breathing the same air. Their foreheads are pressed together.

“You're in love with me?” Chandler exhales.

Joey nods, because he can't seem to find his voice.

“All this time?”

Joey nods again. His hands slide further up Chandler's thighs until they rest on his hips. His face is cupped in Chandler's hands and Chandler wipes the glaze of tears on Joey's cheeks with his thumb. He looks dazed, like he doesn't know if this is real. He ducks his head and sighs deeply before looking at Joey again. His eyes are sad, and Joey knows why.

“Chandler, if you're thinking that I’m gonna hurt you like Kip did, I won't. I’d never. I swear.” After a moment of thought, he adds, “in fact, I'd be happy to remind you that I love you every day for the rest of our lives if it'll make you feel okay again.” He means it, too.

Chandler smiles again, and it's a real smile, one that lights him up and makes Joey’s chest grow warm. “Yeah. Okay, yeah,” Chandler hums, nodding contentedly. “Do that.”

“Okay,” Joey laughs.

They lean into each other for awhile, Chandler rubbing small circles into Joey’s jaw with the pads of his thumbs; their eyes are closed and their mouths find each other on occasion, to leave sucking, chaste kisses. When Chandler yawns, Joey puts an arm around his waist and guides him to his room. Chandler lays down on the bed, and as Joey turns to go, Chandler catches his wrist.

“Stay,” he says. “Please.”

“This isn't too fast for you?” Joey asks.

“We've waited this long.”

So Joey toes off his shoes and shucks his jacket, before stretching out beside Chandler, pulling him close. It's dark. Joey memorizes Chandler's face, the way the light from outside catches on his sharp nose and the angle of his jaw. He memorizes the shape of Chandler's fingers and palms, maps out the expanse of his shoulders with his hands. He commits every moan Chandler makes to memory, and each one sounds like music. Shirts and pants are discarded, but it doesn't go much farther than that. They're perfectly content to touch warm skin and draw constellations in freckles, exploring and learning the other’s body reverently. “You're gorgeous, you know that?” Joey says in quiet awe, and a bright, embarrassed blush creeps up Chandler's stomach and chest and fills his face to his ears.

“I’m pretty average, Joe,” Chandler mumbles, twisting the sheets in his hands.

Joey tucks Chandler's hair behind his ears with both hands and cups the bolts of his jaw. “Not to me,” he says and pulls him into an easy kiss, hands desperate to learn all the hard planes and soft muscles in Chandler’s body. They move languid and slow, and they take their time. Everywhere that Chandler touches feels sun-kissed, like molten gold.

What feels like hours later, Chandler’s head finally rests on Joey's chest as he listens to his heartbeat, Joey's arms around him.

“Did you know how crazy it drove me that every time you kissed me you were stoned or-or drunk?” Joey asks, staring up at the ceiling.

“The truth is I’d been wanting to kiss you for so long, but I was never brave enough to do it on my own,” Chandler says quietly. He props his chin up on his elbow and Joey regards him. “Besides, I could pass it off as some sort of inebriated mistake if it didn't work out, so win-win. The pretend-dating thing might've been a miracle if I didn't feel so bad about using people for my own indulgences.” Joey rolls his eyes.

“ _Chandler_ ,” Joey sighs. “You idiot. You big fucking idiot. I was in love with you for years and it had to take _Janice_ coming here to finally get you to kiss me?”

“This conversation is a little bit of a turn-off, Joe,” Chandler says, smiling with the right corner of his mouth.

“God, you're an idiot.” Joey sweeps Chandler’s hair out of his eyes. “Don't ever stop kissing me, okay?” Chandler grins and throws one leg over Joey's hips. He puts his hands on Joey's collarbones.

“You couldn't get me to stop if you tried,” he says, pressing their lips together. Joey turns his face up to Chandler's, craning his neck as Chandler's hands cup his jaw. They fit together like puzzle pieces.

“I love you,” Chandler murmurs against Joey's teeth. He can feel his features shifting into a grin, and that makes kissing difficult, but he can barely comprehend that he gets to kiss Chandler at all, and the idea fills him with a giddy kind of happiness. Chandler starts to grin too, and then they're just two guys stripped to their boxers and smiling against each other’s mouths, something slowly healing between them and inside them.

“I love you too,” Joey breathes, and it feels right. It feels like a lifetime of promise in four words. It feels like everything Joey’s ever been through, all the bad things and all the pain and the agony, all of it, was worth it, just to be here in Chandler's bed kissing him for all he's worth. Joey would do it all over again if it meant he could have Chandler like this, warm and smiling in the dark, reddening at every praise from Joey's mouth. If it meant one day he could love and be loved in return. It feels good and familiar and perfect. It feels like the beginning of something new.

It feels like coming home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done!!
> 
> Sending love and good vibes to all you beautiful chanoey shippers for your wonderful comments, the concrit, and all the love that this little fic has been getting. I never ever expected there to be so many people who would care about this fic and without you guys we definitely wouldn't be here.
> 
> I'm really going to miss writing this, and I hope you all had a hell of a ride with me while it lasted.
> 
> ♡


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